


The Truth About Greenberg

by tabbytabbytabby



Series: Bad Things Happen Bingo [12]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, Bad Things Happen Bingo, Bullying, Drinking, Gen, Greenberg is Coach's son, Grief/Mourning, Guilt, Hallucinations, Sad Coach, Sad Ending, Sheriff Stilinski's Name is John, Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-28
Updated: 2018-11-28
Packaged: 2019-09-01 23:30:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,976
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16775116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tabbytabbytabby/pseuds/tabbytabbytabby
Summary: A universe where Greenberg is Coach's dead son that he hallucinates.





	The Truth About Greenberg

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LovelyLittleGrim](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LovelyLittleGrim/gifts).



> This is for Amanda, who suggested "what if Greenberg was a figment of Coach's imagination?" to which of course I had to spiral and make it angsty.  
> Also, for Hallucinations for Bad Things Happen Bingo

The truth about Greenberg is that he’s dead. He has been for years. Everyone in town knows about it. The whole thing had been an ordeal when it happened, but no one likes to talk about it. At least not in the open, and certainly not around his father, Coach Bobby Finstock. He’d taken it worse than anyone when Greenberg died.

He’d lost his wife just a year before that, and had been doing his best to raise an 11 year old Zac. It hadn’t been easy. Zac was a great kid, but they both missed his mother. Sometimes Bobby had felt like he didn’t know what he was doing. There had been so many things Lucille had done for them. Things Bobby had never thought about and had taken for granted. Without her he’d felt lost.

Zac hadn’t handled losing his mother well. He’d screamed and he’d cried and he’d begged for his father to bring him back. Bobby had wanted nothing more than to be able to do that. For both of them.

Lucille was the only one that understood why they called their son Greenberg. She’d been there that day when he’d pointed to the rolling hills just outside of town and exclaimed “greenbergs!” At first the couple had been confused, not sure why their son was calling the hills greenbergs. He’d told them it was because they looked like green icebergs. Both Bobby and Lucille had been too amused to correct him. And thus the name Greenberg had been born.

Zac hadn’t had the easiest time at school, even before his mother died. There had always been kids that thought it would be fun to pick on him because he was smaller and liked to sing. His parents did their best to encourage him, and tell him to do what he enjoyed, no matter what anyone else said. They’d tried talking to the teacher, of course. But she had only told them there wasn’t a lot she could do. She’d tried talking to the kids that picked on him, but it had only worked for a time.

Bobby knows he dropped the ball a bit when it comes to his son. He hadn’t been as attentive as he should have been. He’d missed the signs. When 12 year old Zac had come to him, crying and talking about how some of the older boys were picking on him and threatening to beat him up Bobby had told him to suck it up. Something that still haunts him. That had been the last thing he’d said to his son. They’d found his bike in a ravine the next morning; his beaten, pale, lifeless body next to it.

Bobby hadn’t wanted to believe it. His son couldn’t be dead. But he was. He’d died alone and afraid and thinking his father didn’t care enough to help him. Probably hearing him tell him to suck it up as those boys drove him towards the grave.

Bobby hasn’t been the same since that day. He took up drinking after his wife died and it only got worse after he lost his son. He tries to hide it and carry on, knowing that’s what his wife would want. As for Greenberg…

Well, Bobby now has very little tolerance for bullying. Other teachers might be able to stand back and let it happen, but not Bobby. He’s going to do for these kids what no one was willing to do for his son, including him. He’s going to give them a chance. Show them that there is someone on their side, no matter what anyone might think.

He holds himself together enough to keep his job at the high school. Though he does have his moments where he slips. He doesn’t know when it starts. When he starts seeing what his son might have looked like had he lived long enough to be in high school. Probably around the time his classmates enter high school and he has to see them on the lacrosse field or trying out for theater.

The first time he yells at Greenberg in class he doesn’t even realize he does it. He just tells him to lower his hand and moves on, not even catching the looks of confusion on the other student’s faces. It’s not until he gets home that night that he remembers what happened in class, and he crumples to the ground next to the couch. He’d never yelled at Greenberg when he was alive, at least not like that. He knows that whatever that was in class, it had been from his anger at himself, more than anything else.

Before long, it’s just a thing that happens. People just accept that Coach Finstock yells at his dead son. At least the people that know about Greenberg. The ones that don’t either assume Coach is yelling at some poor kid they don’t know, or that it’s just another one of his many quirks. But no one ever confronts him about it.

At least not until John Stilinski. He comes to Bobby one night after lacrosse practice, asking him if there’s anything he’d like to talk about. When Bobby denies there is, John just sighs and gives him a look full of disappointment. It’s not anything new. A lot of people are disappointed in Bobby these days.

Bobby expects that to be it. But instead of leaving, John rests a hand on his shoulder and tells him he knows about the drinking. That he understands things must be hard for him, but if he wants to continue teaching and being a coach that he needs to pull himself together. He then offers up the name of a rehab facility, and a support group he’s been going to.

“I took up drinking after Claudia died,” John tells him. “It was hard, but I managed to pull myself together. I knew if I didn’t I’d wind up joining her a heck of a lot sooner than I should. I couldn’t do that. Not when Stiles needs me.”

Bobby leans back against the bleachers, and gives him a long look. “I appreciate what you’re trying to do Stilinski, but I don’t have that. There isn’t anyone that would miss me. Not anymore.”

“You’re wrong,” John says. “I’d miss you, and I know your students would too. So if you can’t do it for yourself, do it for them.”

So Bobby does. He goes to rehab and tries to pull himself together. Principal Martin does her best to ensure no one knows where he is, wanting him to get the help he needs without too many questions. He goes through the motions and gets sober. He starts teaching again. He finds himself spending more time with John, who insists they both need to have company that isn’t teenagers.

Bobby knows he’s right, though part of him still struggles with it. Sometimes being alone seems better because it means he doesn’t have to hold himself together or pretend. Something he’s always having to do when surrounded by people. Except John doesn’t make him feel like he has to do that. He understands. He lets him vent and scream out his anger and grief. Something he hasn’t fully been able to do. He wishes he could say that makes it easier. It doesn’t.

He still sees Greenberg. Even sober. He’ll be standing in front of the classroom or in the locker room or on the field and he’ll just be there, smiling at him the way he used to before everything went wrong. That makes it worse. Seeing what his son would have looked like had he had the chance to grow up and be happy.

On what would have been Greenberg’s 18th birthday he goes to the cemetery. He places the cap and gown he’d ordered on the grass in front of his grave. The flowers there are fresh. Bobby notices a note on them and pulls it off, unable to help his curiosity about who they could be from. What he reads makes his breath catch and he crumbles the note in his hands.

 _“We’re sorry for what we did._ ”

He knows who this is from. The kids that drove his son to his death. The ones that terrorized him and beat him up and frightened him. They killed him, and now they want to apologize? Bobby has to take a deep breath as anger fills him. It’s been years since he let himself be angry at the kids. His therapist had told him he should try and let it go. He’s done his best, but seeing this note…

They can be sorry all they want, but that’s not going to bring his son back. He has a moment to regret that they never found out who was responsible so he can’t find them and give them a piece of his mind. He supposes that’s for the best. No matter that they did, he knows Greenberg wouldn’t want him to act out of anger towards them. It was the only thing that kept him from tracking them down.

Plus, he knows he’s just as responsible as they are. He’d ignored his son when he asked for help. He’d brushed him off and made it out to be nothing. And when his son had needed him the most, he hadn’t been there. He’d been at the bottom of a bottle, while his son was dying alone in the dark. He puts the note back on the flowers and gets to his feet.

He’s so tired. He’s been trying to push himself to keep going and live because that’s what his family would want. But he just doesn’t think he can do it anymore. No matter what he does he can’t seem to fight his way out of the darkness that keeps threatening to consume him. Right now he doesn’t want to. He thinks it might be better to just give in.

He grabs what he needs and drives out of town, to the rolling hills he used to take Greenberg to when he was a kid. The first place he’d ever called them greenbergs. They’d spend hours out here, laughing and rolling down the hills, sometimes having picnics. It had been one of their favorite places. Bobby hasn’t been back since his family died, but it looks exactly the same.

He sits down on the grass and pulls out the bottles from the convenience store bag. He knows he should feel afraid for what he’s about to do, but he doesn’t. He feels acceptance. This is where he’s been heading for a long time.

Bobby downs the pills, followed by the bottle of whiskey he swore he wouldn’t touch, and then lays back on the grass. He feels hot tears rolling down his cheeks and makes no move to brush them away. He needs them there. They’re a sign that something is real. Even if his son isn’t.

This is what he deserves. He failed his wife. He failed his son. He even failed John by falling off the wagon again. He has a moment to feel regret at that, and pulls out his phone, doing his best to type out an apology to John, even as his vision grows blurry. When he’s done, the phone slips from his fingers, down onto the damp grass beneath him.

“I’m sorry, Greenberg,” he whispers, his voice sounding broken to his own ears.

He closes his eyes when he feels a hand on his arm and a soft voice whisper, “It’s alright, Dad.” He knows it’s not real. But he still takes comfort in it. He has his son here with him as he feels himself drift away. When he opens his eyes again, his son is there, smiling and holding out a hand for him. Bobby takes it.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Kudos/Comments make my day. ♥  
> [My tumblr](http://tabbytabbytabby.tumblr.com/)


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